Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Don't show me this message again

Missa brevis, Op 64

Introduction

The Missa brevis was written in 1973 for the eightieth Patronal Festival of St Matthew’s Northampton, the church renowned for the musical initiatives of the Reverend Walter Hussey (later clerical midwife to Bernstein’s ground-breaking Chichester Psalms). The Kyrie is broad and reflective, with effective use of sinuous major and minor seconds which squeeze and embrace one another in the upper voices. The Gloria brings the men’s voices splendidly to the fore. Mathias’s fondness for repeating key phrases (‘We praise thee …’), a practice in sacred choral music harking back to the Renaissance and earlier, comes over impressively here; but the imprecations—mysterious and deliberately pitched low—furnish evidence of a darker element in Mathias’s writing, as well as an ability, like Britten, to stretch and challenge boys’ voices especially. This excitingly built movement also confirms Mathias’s unerring skill at design and shaping.

You could mistake the bracing and pithy Sanctus, with its insistent, lovely chordings, for fired-up Fauré; the semi-staccatoed organ in the Benedictus beautifully sustains the alla breve unfolding of the voices; while the Agnus Dei could be seen as the masterpiece of the whole Mass: Mathias, like his contemporary John Sanders (one-time organist of Gloucester Cathedral), had a knack of making tonality—offset by intervening silences—work wonders.

Recordings

William Mathias’s ebullient, joyful choral writing, drawing on a variety of musical traditions, is immediately accessible and likeable whilst demonstrating an architectural sophistication that brings it into the top rank of twentieth-century litur ...» More

Glory be to God on high and in earth peace, good will towards men. We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty. O Lord, the only begotten Son, Jesu Christ; O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer. Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, have mercy upon us. For thou only art holy; thou only art the Lord; thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art the Most High, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.